Truth in the Shadows
by Tyranidlord
Summary: (Sos do Dov part 9) Begrudgingly sent to investigate Dimhollow at the behest of Isran, Kaius, Sofia and Lydia certainly weren't expecting to uncover anything substancial. Especially not a four thousand year old vampiric princess and a new threat to Tamriel.
1. Awakening

The battle, if it could be called as such was over almost before any of the participants realised it had begun. Attacking from the shadows, the trio had charged into the midst of the larger group and had begun killing even before weapons could be raised against them. Swords flashed and an axe hacked down hard into meat and bone, taking lives and leaving the ancient stones covered with gore and viscera.

It was not just gore that covered the stonework and the trio had to step carefully around the scattered remnants of some of their enemies as they burned and turned to scattered ash and bones. Wafting on the breeze and lifted up by the very flames that had picked the bones clean, the ash and dust of the four slain vampires clung to the trio's clothing, adhering and mixing with the blood of the mortals to form a black-red paste.

"You know what's the worst part about killing vampires?"

Kaius looked up at Sofia from where he knelt over one of the unburnt corpses, using the dead thrall's hair to wipe his sword clean of blood.

Sofia saw the way that the corners of his mouth curled in amusement and continued on unabated. "The worst part is that no matter what I do I can never get the dust out of my armour." She stopped in mid stride, reaching down and tugging on her belt and pants with one hand while she returned her blade to its scabbard with the other. "Or my underwear."

"Limestone powder mixed with water." Despite wearing several dozen kilograms of armour and equipment Kaius moved as softly as a cloud as he rose to his feet. "And for armour; nothing beats a barrel filled with sand."

"I know, I know. But I still feel so _ick_ anyway. You just need to buy me new clothes."

Choosing to ignore Sofia's comment and the way she framed it, he turned and looked over to Lydia, who was in the process of smoothing her hair back in place after removing her spectacle helm. "Lydia? You okay?"

She nodded, shaking her head and the braids of hair free before taking a closer look at her helm. A silvery gash marked it from the right temple to the back of the helm from a dagger's strike. In a combination of luck and reflexes she had somehow managed to duck her head slightly at the last second, taking the dagger across the helm rather than into an eye.

"I'm fine my Thane. Nothing a few day's polishing won't fix."

"Did you have to kill them like that though?"

Lydia looked between Sofia, Kaius and the two thralls she had slain. One; a woman had died instantly after Lydia had broken her leg with a kick and smashed the head of her axe in between her eyes with incredible force. The other, a somewhat emasculated man responsible for the gash on the housecarl's helm had been punched in the mouth, grabbed with both hands and had his head slammed into the pedestal in the centre of the room.

"I don't see the problem." Planting a boot on the chest of the dead woman she gripped her axe firmly and wrenched it free of skull and brain with a crunch.

Sofia gestured to the man, who was still held upright on his knees facing the pedestal. He hadn't fallen or slumped to the floor because a combination of having his face crushed by the rounded surface of the pedestal, and the twenty centimetre spike that had impaled him through the bridge of the nose.

There was a muffled jingle of chainmail as the housecarl shrugged at what Sofia was pointing at. "The spike came out when the top was pushed down. It must have been some kind of button."

"Good thing we didn't use our hands then." The tingling sensation in the back of her mind was growing and she turned to look at Kaius. Judging by the expression on his face he too was able to feel it as well. Such a sensation only meant one thing.

"Magicka." he muttered, nodding to her and looking about the room. In the past weeks since dealing with the vampires in Morthal he had begun teaching her more than just how to fight. Despite her complete and utter lack of interest in the subject he had begun teaching her how to deal with her headaches and sensitivity to magicka and spells. What surprised her more than the fact that she had actually been listening and learning was that it was beginning to work.

"Coming from where?"

His palm gave birth to a ball of magelight and he flung it across the room to stick to one of the dozens of pillars circling the pedestal. Another two were thrown, showing the full extent of the fight they had just experienced against the four vampires and the thralls. One stuck to the base of a fallen pillar where one of the thralls had died as a smear of broken limbs and jellified organs. Kaius' ability to utilise the Thu'um was increasing daily, and the terrible effect of his _Unrelenting Force _shout was obvious to a blind man.

"My Thane, the blood is seeping into the floor."

Kaius turned and watched as Lydia knelt down at the base of the pedestal, pressing her fingers into the considerable pool of blood at her feet from her two opponents. Both he and Sofia could see that tiny grooves in the stonework had opened to form a grate of sorts where the blood was beginning to drain away. Overall the grate wasn't large, covering only a circular area two metres wide with the pedestal in the centre but it was obvious nonetheless.

"Lydia… You might want to come away from there."

Even before he finished speaking the floor began to tremble, feeling like minor earthquake that grew in intensity with every passing second. As Lydia scrambled away from the centre and to where her companions stood the floor began to lower, locking and snapping into place and turning the central portion of the chamber into a pillar ringed amphitheatre.

The bodies trembled, blood bubbled and poured down the newly formed steps, and the piles of vampire dust were shaken as though being put through a flour sieve. Even the flame blackened bones began tumbling down each step in turn with the shuddering movement. Kaius, Sofia and Lydia stood on one of the upper levels, feeling the vibrations through their feet and watching as the lowering steps revealed a pentagonal pillar just over two metres tall, capped with the spiked pedestal with the impaled corpse now hanging limply by the head.

"Well… That was different."

Neither Kaius or Lydia had any response to give Sofia as they made their way down the short collection of stairs. Instead they looked at the pillar, moving to the lowest level and standing within arm's reach of it.

"Well, this looks like what the vampires were trying to do when they were moving those braziers."

"Looks like it." Kaius replied, running his hands over the stone and feeling the smooth granite under the tips of his fingers. During the months travelling together Sofia had never been able to understand why Kaius wore fingerless gloves. He even went to the effort of hacking off the fingers of new gloves whenever he replaced his old ones.

"So... What is it?"

"Not sure. But can you feel that?"

"Feel what?" Lydia asked, rapping her knuckles on the stone and taking note of the fact that there was no echo from within.

Sofia and Kaius met each other's gaze. "It's enchanted… Slightly... Sorta…" with her hands she felt along one of the edges, sensing the magicka within and the strange nature of it.

"There's a seam here my Thane."

"Good." Nodding to his housecarl, Kaius stepped alongside of her and looked at where she was pointing. "Let's try to open this up and see what's inside."

Wedging the head of her axe into the tiny gap, Lydia grunted and heaved on it without even the slightest of movement from the thick stone. "It feels like its caught on something."

"Um…. Guys?"

"What is it Sofia?" Kaius muttered, unsheathing his skyforge steel broadsword and attempting to lever it in alongside Lydia's axe.

The sudden click made them both jump and they took a step back as two of the sides of the pillar sudden began sliding down into the floor in a controlled movement. It reminded Sofia of the door that Kaius had opened with the Golden Claw in the depths of Bleak Falls Barrow so many months before.

"What did you do?"

She shrugged at him. "I pushed the button."

A boom echoed through the cavern as the pillar opened fully, the noise echoing and somehow making itself felt in their guts. It was also louder and more purposeful than the noise of the floor lowering into stairs only minutes before.

"Well. I wasn't expecting this."

"It's a sarcophagus." Another magelight burned itself into existence in Kaius' hand and he pressed it into the side of the pillar.

"An occupied sarcophagus." Unlike Kaius' light footed nature, Lydia stepped with purpose and her armour clanked slightly as she peered in.

"Well, it is a _crypt_ after all. What were you expecting? A hall full of gold and jewels or living people inside of coffins?"

Lydia gave Sofia one of her signature glares that were almost capable of leaving bruises but as Sofia ignored it as she usually did. But she was right in that the sarcophagus had someone inside.

Time had not been merciful to the body and while used to inflicting death, both Sofia and Lydia shied away from the remains that had been revealed. Its arms had been placed across the chest and the body had been left upright, head back and pressed against a tiny ledge in the back of the pillar. Unlike some of the other bodies and the draugr they had come across there had been no ceremonial bindings or wrappings keeping it upright. Instead, a combination of years and the lack of humidity within the sarcophagus had allowed the body to wither and dry out and turn almost as solid as the stone imprisoning it.

"We came all this way to find a dead woman?"

"Not necessarily." Kaius replied. "I doubt the vampires were interested in a corpse as such but to be buried like this meant that whoever she was she was important."

"Like a queen or something?"

He shrugged. "Possibly. I can't really tell much about who she was by her clothes, but this jewellery isn't the usually baubles you would find on poor people."

"Like us you mean?" Both Kaius and Lydia chose to ignore her usual sarcasm but Kaius had a point. It was impossible to determine anything from the clothing. It was so ancient that it had rotted away almost entirely, leaving the corpse naked except for the few odd remnants that were little more than collections of dust that stained the flesh underneath.

"Do you suppose the draugr are angry because we disturb their sleep? I would also be pretty angry." Leaning in over Kaius' shoulder as he had a closer look at the rings on the corpses fingers Sofia grimaced slightly. "Not that she's a Draugr."

"You keep saying '_she_' or '_her_." Lydia gave the body a quick head-to-toe glance. "How do you know that it's a she?"

"Well, she's got woman's build and hips and everything else. I mean, isn't that pretty obvious?"

"Yeah… I suppose so." With a flick of a wrist Kaius threw another magelight as the ones he had thrown into pillars began to die. "But what do you mean she's not a draugr?"

"No embalming, no removal of organs or preparation. Whoever she is she was put in here as whole as what we would be."

"But she's all desic… desacrate…" the aversion was palatable on Lydia face as she tried to find the correct word. "All dried up."

"That's what happens when you get locked away in a stone box instead of being buried in the ground." Kaius muttered. "She must have been important to be put away like this."

"It's not traditional Nordic burial practices from the first or second era's either. Nor is it nedic or containing elements of any other ancient local cultures."

Both Kaius and Lydia turned and looked at Sofia with expressions akin to astonishment.

"What? You think that after all the tombs and crypts I have been in over the years I can't tell a draugr when I see one?"

"That's probably one of the most intelligent things that I have heard come out of your mouth."

"I'm not just my gorgeous appearance and my incredible fighting prowess." Sofia stuck her tongue out at the housecarl before looking at the way that the body's head was tilted back and jaw hanging open on a slightly odd angle. "I hope I don't die and end up looking like the draugr. That would be my worst nightmare."

"And there's the Sofia we know..." There was no mistaking the tiny chuckle from Kaius as he held a magelight in the palm of his hand and looked over the interior of the sarcophagus. "There's various runes and inscriptions on the inside, most look like various enchantments but I can't read or understand any of them. They're nothing like anything I've seen before."

"What do you make of that then?"

Kaius looked up at the top of the sarcophagus. The portion of the floor that had contained the grate had been the top of the pillar and the blood had been draining inside had been collecting inside a large dish made of similar stone to the rest of it. The dish pooled the blood and funnelled it down a short tube and spout where it dripped and flowed sluggishly directly into the body's open mouth.

"I don't know. Could be anything. The dragon cult was apparently big on blood sacrifices but everything in here is different from the other tombs and barrows we have been in." He went silent, leaning in closer and holding the magical ball of light on Sofia's side. "There's something lodged in behind… _her_. Sofia, can you give me a hand here?"

Illuminated by the glow of the magelight, Sofia could see the object in between the back of the sarcophagus and the spine and despite the trepidation she leaned in while Kaius tried to move the body aside.

"The things I do for you." she muttered, feeling the solid cylindrical shape under her fingers while doing her best not to touch or be touched by the desiccated body. Whatever the object was, it was heavy and felt imbued with a powerful magicka but in her determination to grab it she initially didn't realise that the body's eyes had fluttered open.

Milky white and blind, the eyes were the first signs of movement that caught Sofia's gaze and she recoiled with a stattaco of expletives as she realised that it was looking at her. Kaius initially didn't realise the cause of her reaction, turning and looking at her even as one of the hands shifted and fell onto his arm where he was holding the side of the body. He too leapt back in alarm, his hand falling to his sword at his hip as the dried out husk within the sarcophagus began twitching and moving.

"I _hate_ it when they do that!" Lydia too had backed away from the sarcophagus and the body inside as it began moving. After her initial second's worth of shock she dragged her axe from its leather loop at her hip and went to step forward but Kaius stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

"Lydia, wait."

"Sorry my Thane… But why?"

Sofia's sword had found its way into her hand without conscious thought and she held it between herself and the twitching body. "Lydia! Kaius! Just kill it!"

"You're right Sofia. This isn't a draugr. This is something different."

"Like what?"

His look of confusion broke the panic that had infect both her and Lydia but their attention was drawn to the body as it began shaking even more, like a person who had just managed to climb out of a river full of snow-melt. The blind eyes were darting about and Sofia quickly realised that there was no supernatural blue glow from them. They were almost _normal_ except for the fact that they were within a body that for all intents and purposes should have been dead and staring from a face splattered with half congealed blood.

The burning sensation in the back of the mind was a far cry from the overwhelming headaches that she used to have in the years past, but there was no doubt that the magicka and enchantments woven into the stone of the sarcophagus were building in intensity. It was akin to the sensation of needles being pushed beneath the skin and into the brain and despite Kaius' teachings a migraine threatened to take hold within the first few seconds.

As for the body, it continued shaking and twitching, the arms twisting about and the hands curling into clenched fists that on a living being would have drawn blood with the fingernails. The head lowered itself into a more natural position, the mouth closed slightly but before any of them could realise what was occurring the magicka built to a crescendo.

Starting from the mouth and throat, the body's flesh began to soften and stretch. The fleshy pinkness of skin and muscle began replacing the grey, dried husk of a shell that it had once been and restoring vitality as it went. As it pushed down into the chest, the blackened, shrivelled remains of the heart within the brittle ribcage and wafer-thin skin began to beat. First it moved and throbbed so minutely that it was almost impossible to notice, but within the first dozen beats the various veins and arteries began to pulsate in time. The impossible changes continued, growing and multiplying exponentially until the rejuvenating magicka of the sarcophagus spread through the rest of the chest and into the limbs. Muscles grew and expanded, bones solidified and skin softened and lost the papyrus-like texture it had moments before.

Even the hair, once being little more than a clump of faded strands jutting from the skin-taut skull began to thicken and multiply, fresh growth erupting from the scalp and growing sleek and dark like polished ebony. As though suffering a seizure, the newly restored woman groaned in agony, eyes rolling into the back of the head and falling out of the open sarcophagus with the final burst of enchantments.

"Okay… What the _fuck_ was all that."

Kaius said nothing, ignoring Sofia for the moment and stepping over to where the woman had fallen on her hands and knees. The clothing that had had been interred with long since having disintegrated into nothing and had left her entirely naked. What had been a long dead body interred in a crypt was now the form of a young woman in her mid-twenties, coughing and moaning as a result of the incredible changes she had just gone through.

"I've never seen a draugr do that." Lydia exclaimed, her axe still in hand and ready even as Kaius knelt down over the naked woman as she trembled and shook on her hands and knees on the cold stone floor.

"I think we've established that she's not a draugr." One of his hands reached down and cupped the strange woman's jaw, tilting her head up to look at him.

"Then what is she?"

Using a thumb, he pushed her top lip up to reveal a collection of white teeth where there had been only rotten, decayed stumps before. It also revealed a viciously pointed fang in place of a canine and the scowl that Lydia suddenly wore was almost audible in its intensity.

"She's a vampire." The axe raised itself threateningly and she stepped closer to Kaius and the kneeling vampire. "My thane?"

He gestured to her with his other hand even as he released the grip on the vampiress' face. "No."

"_No?_ Why the fuck not Kaius?"

Rising to his feet, he raised an eyebrow in Sofia's direction and nodded at the sarcophagus. "I have never seen or heard of _anything_ like this before, so it might be useful to find out more before we kill her."

His eyes looked down at the groggy vampiress at his feet and he chewed on a lip in thought. "At least we know what the others were looking for, but I'm now really interested in the _why._"

The last of the changes seemed to be slowing to a stop and with them complete the newly restored vampiress looked up at the three of them as they stood warily around her. "_Var är ..._" She rasped, coughing with the use of her voice. "_Vem skickade dig här?_"

Sofia, Lydia and Kaius all shared a glance. Kaius especially looked between the two Nordic women and gestured to the vampire as she lifted herself up onto her knees. "Well?"

Lydia shrugged, and Sofia couldn't help but have the same reaction. "I… I don't know. It's Nordic but I haven't heard that dialect before."

"It is not the tongue of Whiterun Hold" Lydia nodded in agreement, her axe still ready in hand. "and I don't think it's from any of the old holds either."

Obviously listening to them talk about and not too her, the vampiress groaned again and attempted to rise but Kaius' hand came to rest on her shoulder in a firm but gentle warning. "_Qui misit te_?" She said again, the words different but strangely familiar as the strange vampire tired different languages. "_Wo uth hi?_"

She shook her head, pressing her palm to her temple as though trying to force the words to free themselves from the shackles of her mind. "W-who sent you?"

The accent was thick and guttural, but understandable. In a lot of ways, it was remarkable similar to Lydia's Nordic accent but much more pronounced and noticeable.

"Who were you expecting?" Kaius asked sarcastically, turning his full attention to the nude vampire kneeling in front of him.

Fire burned behind her eyes and the blue irises swirled and became consumed with a red-golden light that was visible in the darkness. "I was expecting someone from my _brod_; my family. I don't recognise you. Are you one of my father's little acolytes?"

"A group called the _Dawnguard_ sent us here." Sofia replied, trying not to shiver as the burning gaze of the vampiress turned to look upon her almost for the first time. the intensity of that stare reminded her all too much of the terrible darkness lurking within Kaius and the other vampires they had fought in the previous months. She still had nightmares about Laelette pinning her to the ground and staring with thirsting eyes as she snapped and salivated for blood.

"That is not a name I know. _And _it does not sound like a name a group of _vampyr_ would choose."

The electric current that ran through all of them was obvious but it was caused for different reasons. Sofia startled as she had found herself mesmerised by the vampiress who knelt there as though she was totally in control of the situation rather than being on her knees and naked before three heavily armed, armoured and blood covered killers. Kaius jolted slightly at the words and the obvious recognition within the vampiress' tone and what the statement meant and Lydia…

Lydia's eyes simply narrowed and her attention turned solely to Kaius. "Vampires?" the single word rumbled forth from her chest as a dangerous growl.

Turning her head and the burning gaze with it to the armoured housecarl she nodded. "You think I cannot tell my own kind? I smelled _him_ almost before my _miin_ were open."

The way her head inclined towards Kaius let no doubt to her words and Lydia's gaze hardened even further in a way that left the air charged with tension. Sofia started to step forward but before anyone could do anything else Lydia had taken three steps forward and smashed Kaius off his feet with a single powerful punch.

"You… You _fucking bastard_!" she roared, her fist still clenched tightly around the haft of her axe despite the way she had hit him. She continued with another collection of words that left her mouth were directed with all the full force of a hurled stone from a trebuchet but were pure Nordic.

Kaius had been knocked down and had found himself sitting on the floor with blood running into his goatee. He was more shocked than hurt, despite the way that he had to spit to rid himself of a mouthful of blood and a piece of tooth. "Lydia… I…"

"Don't you '_Lydia_' me!" her own eyes were burning with a terrible anger that somehow made the vampiress' own seem inconsequential. "You've been lying to me this whole damn time and you expect me to listen to you? To _trust you_?!"

Attempting to open his mouth in reply, Lydia instead spat another stream of Nordic curses that seemed to convey their meaning, intent and anatomically horrendous nature with sheer tone alone. Her shield crashed to the floor at his feet, the rattling of the metal rim rolling to a stop of the floor echoed several dozen times in the cavern but it struggled to be heard over the sound of Lydia stomping off, swearing every step of the way.

"Sofia?" Carefully raising himself to his feet and spitting on the floor again, Kaius looked over his shoulder at her as there was an enormous crack, followed by the crash of something large and made of stone being turned into rubble. "Can… Can you go make sure she is alright?"

Making a decision between staying with the two vampires or go and try to calm down an extremely pissed off Nordic shield-maiden, Sofia decided that following the sounds of destruction was probably a safer option. As she vanished into the darkness in Lydia's footsteps, Kaius turned his attention back to the vampiress who had scrambled out of the way looking extremely concerned at what had just occurred.

"Things have just gotten really complicated in case you weren't able to tell." He said softly, trying his best to ignore the way the sounds of Lydia breaking things elsewhere in the cavern echoed about them and to control his own emotions. "You have me curious, and so far that curiosity is keeping you alive. Who are you and why were you locked away like this?"

The vampiress' eyes met his own and with an obvious effort of will she concentrated and extinguished the inhuman hunger glowing within them. In a few seconds she had lost all traces of her true nature, her eyes had turned into a deep blue-green, and her fangs had slid up further into her gums where they were hidden from view. "That's… That's complicated, and I'm not totally sure if I can trust you."

"Fair enough." Kaius patted himself on the chest with a fist. "My name's Kaius. The other two are Sofia and Lydia. Lydia's my housecarl and in case you hadn't noticed she didn't know what I am until now."

"I guessed as much. My name is Serana…" Carefully, she rose to her feet watching and appearing to be expecting for Kaius to stop her again. There was an obvious pause for a moment, and somehow Kaius knew that she was deciding on exactly how much to say. "I guess all things considered it is good to meet you."

"Circumstances notwithstanding." Kaius replied. "I've never met or heard of a vampire that can regenerate like you just did. It's a neat trick."

A calculating look appeared in Serana's eye and she gave Kaius a more appraising stare that was totally at odds with the way that she was standing before him entirely naked. "And I have never encountered one like you."

"Nor will you ever." Kaius ignored the way that there was a moment of concern from Serana as he reached up over his shoulder. It was obvious the way her eyes watched his every movement with something akin to fear, a deep seated distrust that was impossible to completely hide especially as he moved his hand up and past the knife strapped to his chest and began unbuckling his cloak. "Who's your father?"

"He's a very powerful man. Or he was at one point. I'm surprised that another vampire who has made it here hasn't heard of him."

"Truthfully? You are the first vampire I have encountered that didn't immediately try to attack or kill me. Although it does make it difficult to learn names before they are ash and bones." With the last strap gone, Kaius pulled the cloak off his back and handed it to her in a bundle of wool-lined cloth. Serana was roughly the same height as Sofia and had a similar build which allowed her to be almost entirely covered as she nodded her thanks and pulled it around her shoulders.

"Maybe I'm the first because I have nothing and you are obviously not taking any chances with me."

"There is that too."

"So what now?"

He shrugged, tapping his fingers on the hilt of his sword. "I'm not sure. I was sent here to find out why vampires have been so interested in his place recently and it appears as though I may have found that reason. The Dawnguard would want me to kill you."

"Not fond of vampires are they?"

"You could say that. It's something that they and I have in common at least."

Serana grimaced and saw the utter lack of emotion on Kaius' face and knew that he would draw his sword, run her through and not even feel the tiniest bit of remorse in doing so. "Well, look. Kill me, you've killed one vampire. But if others are after me, there's something bigger going on. I can help you find out what that is."

"That, and I can also find out how you got locked away and the type of magicka that was utilised to bring you back from the dead." his eyes wandered between her and the sarcophagus before finally coming to rest on the cylindrical object that was still contained within.

She saw the way his eyes moved, and the sudden look of astonishment that took over his face. Within a second she had reverted back towards her true nature, her fangs jutting from between her lips and face growing taut as she stepped between him and where she had been locked away.

With an unsteady voice, he gestured to the object as she put herself between it and him. "Is that…"

"Yes, it is, and it's mine."

With her footsteps announcing her approach, Sofia appeared at the top of the stairs and made her way down towards the two of them. "Lydia will need a few more minutes, but I have managed to calm her down."

Turning away from Serana, Kaius lowered his head slightly and refused to meet Sofia's gaze. "How is she?"

"She's… Well… She's _royally_ pissed off."

"She hates me." he said softly, almost too softly for anyone to hear.

"She hates you because you didn't trust her enough to tell her yourself." Crossing her arms, Sofia kept Serana in the corner of her eye but frowned at Kaius. "I'd hate to say, '_I told you so_…' Ah, who am I kidding; _I told you so_. There; that's something else you owe me for."

He sighed loudly, interlocking his fingers and resting both hands on the top of his head. "I know."

"Then you should have done something about it. It wouldn't have mattered if you were Pelagius the Mad or Mannimarco Himself; she has sworn an oath to you and will follow you no matter what you are or what you do."

"And what about you?"

"It's been months Kaius. I'll be by your side, unless I find someone better to stalk." Despite the grin on her face there was a deadly seriousness in her tone. "What about _it_?"

They both saw the way how Serana scowled a little at Sofia's words but she had finished wrapping up the object from the sarcophagus within the folds of the cloak.

"I don't know. What do you think we should do?"

"Cut her throat, find everything shiny in here and go waste it on mead."

The deep _hmmm_ was not lost on either of them, and Serana moved closer, ignoring the way that Sofia edged away slightly. Her vampirism was once again hidden, but there was no mistaking the way she moved like one. Unlike Kaius she was obviously not used to keeping her nature hidden.

"My family used to live on an island to the west of Solitude. I guess they still do." Serana said simply, ignoring the way that Sofia was watching her like a hawk and Kaius was still obviously considering simply killing her and walking away. "If you want to know whole story, help me get back to my family's home."

Rounding on her companion, Sofia rolled her eyes. "Don't tell me you're actually considering that. Solitude is what? Two weeks travel from here?"

"Yeah."

"And she's a vampire…"

"One that has an Elder Scroll."

Sofia and Serana both stopped and stared, with Sofia's expression of shock overriding her fear and unease. "An Elder Scroll? How the fuck does she have an Elder Scroll?"

Kaius cut Serana off in mid breath. "That's also something she won't tell us unless we help her."

For a minute that seemed to drag on for eternity, Sofia studied Kaius' and Serana's cold expression framed in her shoulder length hair. "Well then. I suppose we all better find a way out of here."


	2. Revelations

Lydia eventually returned having vented a considerable amount of her rage on various inanimate objects and while she rejoined the group a stony silence fell between her and Kaius. No longer completely deferential, she instead chose to be utterly silent in his presence, only speaking to Sofia and even exchanging a few words with Serana. The tension was thick enough to cut with a blade as they found a way out of the ancient crypt and onto the surface once more.

For her part, Serana remained quiet and acted like Kaius' shadow not out of a desire for protection but for the simple fact that within minutes of leaving the cavern where she had been entombed she had admitted to not recognising anything. For however long she had been locked away the world it seemed had moved on without her, and even the tomb itself had been altered, changed and expanded in the depths of the hillside. This was soon only one of several revelations about her as she had also been the one to have found the way to the surface and when Sofia had emerged she had found the vampiress standing, head tilted upwards and eyes closed as she felt the sunlight on her flesh.

Out of all of them, Kaius appeared to be the most in shock at that certain revelation. Sofia had long since grown used to his ability to withstand Sunlight, Lydia hadn't found Serana's ability any different to his. They both realised very quickly that he had not considered the possibility that there would be others of his kind who could exist in sunlight and the trepidation and wariness that gathered around him was obvious.

Serana was different in many aspects. While she could walk in the sun, she was obviously weaker, slower and less agile than Kaius who showed no marked difference in his abilities whether he was in the shadows or in the noonday sun. Like someone who had marched for two days straight, Serana plodded along with none of the grace and strength she had shown within the crypt and it was only when the sun fell that she returned to 'normal'.

They had made camp several hours from the small mining town of Stonehills, gazing upon it's faint flickering lights as torches, lanterns and braziers were lit. While they would have been able to potentially make the distance with time to spare, they all had decided, Serana included that it wouldn't have been the best idea to go close to civilization with her in tow. For the first few days at least. Like he had dozens of times before, Kaius had managed to light a small campfire, while Sofia pitched the two traveller's tents and Lydia gathered the wood needed to keep the flames going for the evening. While winter was a recent memory, frosts were still overwhelmingly common and it allowed them to supplement their rations with the rabbits Kaius had managed to catch.

"It's two days to Morthal." He had said simply as he had expertly skinned and gutted the rabbits in turn. "We'll stock up on supplies there and head to Dragon Bridge. All in all, should be a week to get to our destination."

Sofia always enjoyed watching him go through the process of preparing any game that he caught as he slitted them open, scooped the insides out and filled them with a collection of stones for cooking. There was something disturbingly mesmerising about the way that he went about it with such precision and ease from many, _many_ years of practice. He was so skilled in the motions that he could twirl the knife and cut the rabbits apart without even looking at what he was doing.

"How can you be sure that your _family_ is even still there?" Lydia snarled, staring daggers at Serana sitting on her own side of the fire. Lydia and Sofia were sitting close to each other, weapons at hand while Kaius and Serana sat on opposing sides that created a triangle between the small group.

Serana shrugged, her form mostly hidden under Kaius' cloak and the clothes she had managed to piece together by stripping the dead thralls in the crypt. Overall she looked almost swallowed in the pieces of clothing that were slightly too large for her. "I don't. I don't know if they are still there, or whether they still exist or anything at all."

"Just how old are you?" Sofia asked, remembering the way that Kaius had roughly told her his own age months ago that night before he killed the dragon.

There was another shrug. "I don't know."

"How old are you then?" Lydia's tone was entirely insubordinate as she directed the barbed question to Kaius and Sofia couldn't help but wince at the raw emotion in it. There was no _yes my thane, no my thane, three-sacks-full my thane_, from her anymore.

"Two hundred and thirty-four." Kaius said simply, tossing a handful of entrails into the hole dug into the soil at his side. "Give or take a year."

Only the crackling of the campfire could be heard as they all digested the information and Sofia pulled her cloak tighter around herself. Such a number somehow made her feel _lonely_ and it was an unusual feeling. "How long were you in that… place?" She asked instead, trying and failing to look the other vampire in the eye.

"Good question." For several moments she sat deep in thought, taking a roasted rabbit leg from Kaius as he pulled the first one from the coals. "Hard to say. I… I can't really tell."

Sofia handed Lydia her roasted rabbit, skewered on one of the thin steel roasting sticks that Kaius kept strapped to his travelling bag for just this purpose and bit into her own. Lydia wasn't even accepting food from Kaius at the moment.

As Serana chewed thoughtfully on her piece of rabbit, both Lydia and Sofia shared an expression of concern at the recent memory that it brought to the surface. When Kaius had come back into camp after his companions had a very uneasy hour alone with Serana, one of the rabbits he had brought back was still alive and twitching in his hand. Somehow he had managed to catch it alive and unharmed and without any word of explanation or warning he had simply handed it to Serana who promptly bit its head off. Sofia couldn't decide what was more horrifying; the way the vampiress had changed into her darker nature and unhinged her jaw slightly, the way she had simply chewed a few times before swallowing, or the way she had fastened her mouth around the stump and proceeded to drain the rest of the corpse before handing it back to Kaius.

The more she thought of it, the worst part was the way how Serana had looked horrified at what she had done for the briefest of moments before returning to the cold persona that seemed to be her normal attitude. Kaius for his part had watched intently, studying Serana's every move with a predatory intensity and it was obvious that everything he was doing was testing her and her abilities.

"I feel like it was a long time." Serana said after delicately picking the leg clean with her human, unchanged teeth. "Who is Skyrim's High King?"

The way that Kaius, Sofia and Lydia chuckled darkly was not lost to her. "That's actually a matter for debate." Sofia said simply.

"Oh, wonderful. A war of succession." Ignoring the way that Kaius had been snorting in amusement at Sofia's tone Serana flicked one of the tiny leg bones into the fire. "Good to know the world didn't get boring while I was gone. Who are the contenders?"

"The Empire supports Elisif." Kaius said, pulling his own rabbit out of the fire where it had been stuck on the end of his sword.

"But there are many in Skyrim loyal to Ulfric." Sofia added.

The look of confusion was impossible to ignore as Serana turned and frowned at Kaius. "Empire? What… What Empire?"

Pulling the impaled rabbit away from his mouth and swallowing a mouthful of hot flesh he gestured about himself. "The… _Empire_. From Cyrodiil."

"Cyrodiil? Where's Cyrodiil?" realisation crossed her face and her mouth fell open in surprise. "You mean _Cyrod_? Cyrod is the seat of an empire? I must have been gone longer than I thought. Definitely longer than we planned."

For the first time in hours, Lydia, Sofia and Kaius all shared expressions of confusion and unease as Serana tucked her legs up under her chin and wrapped herself fully in Kaius' cloak. "I need to get home so I can figure out what's happened."

"Tell me about your home." Kaius asked softly.

"It's on an island near Solitude." Huddled under the cloak and overlarge clothing, the vampiress seemed somewhat _small_ despite her obvious nature. "It's my family home. Not the most welcoming place, but depending on who's around I'll be safe there."

Sofia leaned forward and spat a chunk of gristle into the flames that sizzled and spat. "Why wouldn't you be safe there? We all saw what you did to those draugr back in the crypt and beside that, you're a vampire to boot."

Hint of glowing energies surged beneath the blue-green eyes as they reflected the fire's light. "Let's just say that my mother and father had a bit of a falling out." She caught Kaius' expression and gave a reassuring smile to Sofia, not that she needed the assurance. "Don't worry, I'm not in any danger or anything like that. It'll just be more unpleasant to run into my father."

"He sounds like quite the guy." There was absolutely no mistaking the threat in Lydia's voice as she finished her meal and dragged her axe over her lap. There was also no mistaking the intent as she went about the process of scraping the edge clean and sharp again with a whetstone, all the while watching Serana.

"So who was High King before you… well, you know." Sofia asked, partially because she was curious in a morbid kind of way.

"Well, King Olaf had passed away a year or two before and I never really found out who was named as his successor."

Again Lydia and Sofia shared a glance and their unease was mirrored by Kaius as he stopped in mid motion, showing the most amount of emotions that either of them had ever seen. Half chewed food fell out of his mouth in the moment as he openly gaped at Serana.

"King Olaf. As in _Olaf One-Eye_?" Kaius spluttered. "He was High King?"

Serana nodded, looking but not understanding their expressions. "I know my accent is hard to understand but you all seem to know of him. How long ago was his reign?"

Kaius' sword had somehow turned from an eating implement into a deadly weapon once against despite him not moving or changing the way he was holding it. "Serana, when were you born?"

"Five-Forty-Six. Why? What's the problem?"

She saw the way that all three were watching, and the circular motions Sofia was making with her hand with an expression of '_and_,_ go on_' on her face.

"Five-forty-six of…?" Kaius replied.

"Five hundred and Forty-six years since Ysgramor's conquests. Again, what is the problem?"

Silence fell between them again and Sofia's face scrunched in concentration as she tried to remember the dates and history and came completely up short. Such thinking was making her yearn for a bottle or mead. Or a dozen at least.

Wetting his lips with his tongue before wiping them on the back of his demi gauntlet, Kaius gave Serana a stare that could almost be described as _grandfatherly_. "Serana… That was in the Merethic Era."

"Am I supposed to understand the reference?"

Surprise and nervousness were not emotions or reactions that Kaius was used to and neither were Sophia and Lydia in seeing him as either. "Well, so much has been lost to time and history that most dates are uncertain…"

"_Bara berätta!_" she snapped. "Just tell me!"

"You're about four and half _thousand_ years old."

If they had thought she had been shocked before, they had been mistaken. Her mouth split open slightly and eyes widened before her jaw clenched as the bones and muscles of her face tightened perceptibly. For several moments it was almost as though her darker nature would surface before she crushed it aside with her will, showing a moment of sadness before rising to her feet.

"I… I need a moment." She said softly, turning and walking into the darkness with the cloak hanging limply from her shoulders.

"Fucking oblivion." Kaius muttered to himself as she vanished into a small copse in the darkness.

"She didn't seem to take it well." Sofia added, staring in Serana's direction.

"Would you? We just told her that everything that she knew about this world… _hells_, her entire world ceased to exist a long time ago. There's a damn good chance that she's completely alone."

"So?" the sound of the whetstone on the axe punctuated Lydia's every syllable. "She's a vampire."

Kaius chose to ignore the obvious connotations his Housecarl's comments had. "It's still worth travelling to her home. It'll most likely be a ruin if it exists at all, but at least now we have a better idea of why the other vampires want her."

Sofia found her attention drawn to the burning embers of the fire. "Besides the Elder Scroll?"

"Yeah. Besides that, the older a vampire becomes the more powerful they are. If what Serana says is true, then she is quite easily the oldest vampire in existence and that is something to be concerned about."

"Then why don't we just kill her?" Lydia's voice was as cold and sharp as her axe.

"Because she might not be the only one of her kind…" Kaius looked distinctly uneasy at that thought. "We can't afford not to be certain."

* * *

It took them the better part of two weeks and a handful of short stays within towns and villages along the way but the group had lead Serana towards the northern regions of Haafinger Hold. The temperature was cold and bleak, snow falling on occasion despite the summer months and only fully clothed in thick furs and clothes were they able to make the journey in any comfort. Serana had proven herself quite capable at disguising her true nature when required, an ability assisted by the way the weakened in direct sunlight and after the first week travelling Lydia had relaxed a little towards Kaius. There was still a considerable gulf wedged between them but it was no longer appearing as though she was going to try to kill him at a moment's notice.

Travelling over the mountain range splitting Haafinger Hold in two they made good progress in the last days, arriving on a tiny peninsular jutting out from the land where it pointed accusingly at an enormous stone edifice built onto an island off shore. There was less than three hundred metres separating the giant fortress from the mainland but there was no mistaking the enormity of it. Kaius had estimated it to be about a third of the total height of White-Gold Tower but also said it appeared to be of Nordic construction rather than made by the hands of elves.

They camped in amongst the trees on the peninsular for the night, barely talking in the presence of castle that sat off in the darkness like a squatting gargoyle on top of a rocky outcrop. It was dark and foreboding and they all had noticed the way Serana had become even quieter as their destination had approached. They had not spoken much about their other lives or their personal histories, but it was obvious that Serana had developed a hunger of knowledge of the world as it was in the present. Sofia recognised it as a coping mechanism as such to take her mind away from the fact that the world that she had been locked away in didn't exist and that fact held massive ramifications.

When Serana travelled to the castle, she did so with only Kaius by her side. Lydia chose to wait for their return, and Sofia had no intention of getting in one of the handful of tiny fishing boats moored along the ancient jetty at the end of the peninsular. They were sea worthy only in the way that petrified wood could be and she wasn't going to take any chances. So as dawn arrived and brought morning with it, She and Lydia both made themselves comfortable for either their return, or for two days to pass to make their way back south to warmer climates.

The wait was shorter than expected, and shortly after noon Lydia had noticed the movement on water, seeing the tiny boat being rowed back from the castle. It had only been a few hours, but as it drew nearer they could see that Kaius was on board, and Serana was nowhere to be seen.

"How did it go?" Sofia asked as Kaius rowed the boat over to the crumbling jetty.

Without a word he quickly tied the boat off with a length of rope before jumping up and staring at the two women in front of him.

"Kaius?" Although they had been travelling together and face a lot of dangers over several months, she knew that Kaius was not by any definition a nervous man. But, he stood there, looking back at the giant castle with icebergs dozens of kilometres away framing it in view and even Lydia could sense his unease.

It was impossible to determine whether it was the cold that caused his full body shiver but Sofia suspected otherwise. Especially as he turned around, fixed them both with a pointed stare and sighed.

"We're in _really_ deep shit..."

* * *

Author's note:

I am fully aware that the official lore regarding Serana and her family is extremely disjointed and leans towards her being locked away sometime in the mid 2nd Era. In my AU of Bloodtide Rising and the fact that the in-game and official Dawnguard lore is very contradictory I have specifically chosen to have Serana locked away in the 4th Century of the 1st Era, before the battle of Red Mountain and the disappearance of the Dwemer, during the first decades of the Alessian 'Empire' and so on. For anyone who can't be bothered with doing the calculations, she was locked away around 1E454 in my AU.

The languages she initially speaks are a mixture of Swedish, Latin and Dovahzul to show the major 'languages' spoken during the first era in my AU. For ease of writing and so I don't have to expand on the limited lore-languages in place, I am treating ancient Cyrodillic as Latin, Ancient Nordic as Swedish, and common (English) being a derivative of almost all other languages (like it is in lore). It has been roughly 5000 years since the beginning of the 1st Era by the time of the events in Skyrim and while I have taken a huge amount of creative license with the language side of things I was never really comfortable with the way how when you find Serana, not only is she fully clothed but she's speaking pure 'common' with no accent or difficulty. Yes I know it's a game thing etc etc etc but even if she was locked away in the middle of the 2nd Era, that's nearly a 1000 years locked away. Languages change a lot even in a few generations.

Serana is by far my favorite character in TES due to the extreme depth of character and the backstory that is only hinted at through her interactions and dialogue and while I am not happy with the amount of 'screentime' I have provided her in this story, she is going to be make much larger appearances in the coming parts of "Sos do Dov". I'm looking forward to not only working on her character but expanding Sofia's and Lydia's further, especially how they interact with each other and Kaius. Kaius may be the MC but he's not the center of attention in this series. Sofia is very much hogging the spotlight (as she does).

All this put aside, I hope anyone who reads this is enjoying the story so far! :-D


End file.
